Which type of a cook are you?

[Gifted Gourmet]

I have been mulling this idea over in my mind for some time now:

When you plan and begin to make a dish at home, what exactly is your personal modus operandi?

If you are like many home cooks, myself included, and many more times than I even care to admit, I jump right into the recipe with little or no prep figuring that I can chop the garlic while the onions are sautéing. After which I get 3 steps into the recipe and find that I needed to reduce some balsamic before adding it .. so now I am scurrying around trying to get it done before everything overcooks and my none-too-careful-timing is completely thrown off....

Or are you the consummate, organized cook who excels at a mis en place way of preparing a dish? Do you discover a delicious looking recipe in one of many cooking magazines, then making a list of ingredients that are required ... then going to the store and buying all the ingredients on the aforementioned list ...finally arriving home to start prepping all your ingredients? Are all of your ingredients necessary to make this particular dish? Are your meats, chicken, and fish cut, then deboned? Are the fresh herbs for seasoning sauces washed, cut, and separated into small bowls? Spices in little dishes and ready to add? Are all of the vegetables sliced, diced, possibly julienned to the correct size, everything ready to go?? (Need a miniature prep cook to do this??)

So which cook are you?? tell you later which I am ...

[jsolomon]

Currently, I am not an organized cook... but I also have 8 square feet of counter space and an apartment-sized stove.

Give me a real kitchen and a real counter and I'll act like a real responsible adult.

[Sleepy_Dragon]

Organized with mise en place. Otherwise it's just courting disaster.

I wish I could cook better on the fly, sometimes I even manage it in a pinch, but it's stressful and unpredictable.

I also live in a studio apartment, so I have to be organized. There's just no space for anything else, and a wrench in the works can really screw things up.

Pat

Edited April 13, 2005 by Sleepy_Dragon (log)

[Lone Star]

I am a jumper Just get in there and start cooking!

If I want to try a new recipe, I will either make a mental note or a written note of the special ingredients and pick it up next time I am grocery shopping.

Being the working mother of three busy teenagers, my everday cooking style is "as fast as I can". Hurry, Hot and a Helluva lot

Sometimes on the weekends I will take a notion to try something new, and the pace is much more leisurely and planned.

[Marlene]

I tend to be on the organized side, although I've still started recipes only to discover I was out of something I thought I had..

[MaggieB]

My meal planning and production method gives new meaning to Anal Retentiveness! On weekends I plan the entire week of menus, taking into account evening commitments (kids sports, yoga, etc) that will be influencing my meal plans. I make a complete, typed store list for my husband. The items are separated by category and the categories are in the same order as they appear in the store When he brings the groceries home, I prep all my greens per Rachel Ray.

Each evening, after work, I take great pleasure in laying out all of my ingredients that I know are going to be there, preparing everything, then cooking. All items are assembled on my cutting board, chopped, sliced, diced, schpliced, whatever. To the left of the board is my recipe and my garbage bowl (idea from RR again). Sometimes I lay out my non-perishable ingredients before work on my cutting board, but one day I watched my cat jump onto the counter and sit squarely in the middle of the board, like it had been put there just for him, so I don't do that too much anymore.

Occasionally I do make a quick lunch hour run late in the week if there is a particularly perishable item to be cooked that night, but I usually try to plan around that.

[Busboy]

Wednesday night, just us and the kids? Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!

Though, to be sure, if Stephanie is lead cook for the night (she often brings me in just as the "closer") she will have the mise done. And, with a lot of recipes you get started on one thing and "mise up" (or mess up) for the other courses as you go along. And, if I'm out of something, I make the kids go to the store and get it.

Saturday night dinner for ten? Definitely a mise guy. I used to watch the chefs banging out plates where I worked and learned the importance of mise by aping them at home. Had no idea what it was called.

Edited April 13, 2005 by Busboy (log)

[Busboy]

My meal planning and production method gives new meaning to Anal Retentiveness! On weekends I plan the entire week of menus, taking into account evening commitments (kids sports, yoga, etc) that will be influencing my meal plans. I make a complete, typed store list for my husband. The items are separated by category and  the categories are in the same order as they appear in the store When he brings the groceries home, I prep all my greens per Rachel Ray.

Each evening, after work, I take great pleasure in laying out all of my ingredients that I know are going to be there, preparing everything, then cooking. All items are assembled on my cutting board, chopped, sliced, diced, schpliced, whatever. To the left of the board is my recipe and my garbage bowl (idea from RR again). Sometimes I lay out my non-perishable ingredients before work on my cutting board, but one day I watched my cat jump onto the counter and sit squarely in the middle of the board, like it had been put there just for him, so I don't do that too much anymore.

Occasionally I do make a quick lunch hour run late in the week if there is a particularly perishable item to be cooked that night, but I usually try to plan around that.

←

You would cry if you had to cook with me, in my kitchen.

[Smithy]

I am a horribly, terribly disorganized cook. With few exceptions, the only way I can pull a dish together - especially if I'm working from a cookbook - is to have everything out, diligently chopped and measured, and ready to go. I *know* I should be able to mince the garlic while I'm sweating the onions. But if I count on doing that, something will come up: the dog will decide he has to go out now (which means the cats have to come in), or I'll realize that I forgot to cut the basil and have to go outside to get it just when the sauce is thickening, or I'll get to the "add broth" stage and realize it's still in the freezer.

Even with the advance prep, I manage somehow to take up every square inch of counter space and then some, with chopped prepped things mixed up among the stuff waiting to be prepped, and a jar of spice toppled over into the sink. I've been thinking I need to start a thread titled "how can I use my space more efficiently?" but I'm still working on an adequate description of my kitchen flailings so it could be useful for critique.

It's worst when I'm trying to follow a recipe I've never made. Let me hear a piece of music only a few times, and I can play it for you. Let me read a recipe a dozen times, and I'll still have to read it, step by painful step, ingredient by ingredient, when I actually make it the first (and maybe second) time.

"Let's see...3 cloves minced garlic, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp salt, pinch of pepper..." <starts mincing>

<walks back over to the cookbook> "Was that 1 tsp salt or 1 tbsp salt?"

<measures>

<walks back to the cookbook> "Gaah. Was that 1/4 tsp pepper or a pinch of cayenne?"

It's mayhem even with the prep. Without the prep we'd advance to full-blown bedlam.

[mizducky]

I'm sort of a modified organized cook. If it's a recipe I've never done before, especially if it involves unusual or exotic-to-me ingredients, I'll do the full-fledged make-a-list make-special-shopping-trip business. If it's one I'm more familiar with, I'm a bit more laissez-faire, but I'll still get my mise-en-place pretty well lined up before I start, and have at least a mental gameplan WRT the various steps in the method. And when I do my mise, I'll seldom go as far as measuring out individual spices (unless it's a curry or some such, where I'll have a little bowl that I'll have dumped together all the measured spices that are going in together). But at the very least I'll have all the little spice containers and the measuring spoons close at hand. And anything that needs preliminary prep work will be all prepped and waiting in their individual bowls. I also make a reasonable attempt at clean-as-you-go, a major necessity in kitchens short on counter space (i.e., just about every kitchen I've ever worked in).

[CtznCane]

Mise en place is the one single area I've tried to improve on in my cooking. No matter how much one tries, if you have a recipe that requires timing and you aren't ready when that time comes, well, you're screwed.

Even though I tried to be orderly, having things ready in advance, I didn't have enough done in advance and while I may still have pulled things off I was left with a disaster area afterwards not to mention the stress level which takes away from enjoying the meal. It's bad enough when cooking for 2 but we like to entertain and when it is 4, 6, 8 or more things become exponentially more difficult when not prepared.

We just remodeled our kitchen and while still not large I did gain some counter-space. That helps, but it is still a case o being the Indian not the Tomohawk when it comes down to efficiency. I've gotten a lot better in terms of mis en place. While I wing many or most dishes now, as opposed to an exact recipe, I usually have an idea beforehand that alllows me to be more prepared for the direction I want to go in.

Not enough, in my mind, is written about mise en place. Not only in terms of its importance (which is a given) but in how to better accomplish it. I'm not a super big Bourdain fan, yet I bought his Les Halles Cookbook and for what he says on Mise en place alone easily justifies buying the book.

Bottom line, mark me in the group that strives for mis en place yet is still fighting to get it done.

[iheartoffal]

I'm less of a mise en place kind of guy than I am a mess en place kind of guy.

Edited April 13, 2005 by iheartoffal (log)

[FistFullaRoux]

I jump in with almost everything except for dishes that require a roux. If you don't have your mise done for a gumbo or a fricassee, you are going to blow it. I'll sometimes do mise for an unfamiliar recipe as well.

Mostly, if it's a dish I've done before, I'll know that I have x amount of time while this is coming toa boil to prepare the next item.

But I also cheat a bit. I've got ziplock bags of onion, celery, carrot, and bell pepper already chopped sitting in the freezer. That would probably be my secret weapon in the kitchen. Just grab and go...

[Gifted Gourmet]

Just when my culinary self esteem hits rock bottom, I read this:

Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs

Ever wonder how professional chefs seem to whip up in minutes what would take you hours to prepare at home? Really, it's not magic--just good planning and organization. Oh, and not to mention the help of the low man on the culinary totem pole: the prep cook. This human food processor supplies the chef with prechopped and peeled vegetables, marinated meats, and prepared stocks--collectively known as "mis en place"--so that recipes can be assembled quickly and easily. Well, at home, the chef is the sous chef is the prep cook, so it's best to get organized and then start chopping.

maybe I ought to start reallly slowly .. you know, buy those little glass dishes ...

[alexw]

At work, I am a narrow minded prep fiend, then I have to be we knock out aroud 5000 meals a month, at home I generally get to stage 3 of a recipe get bored and wing it into something totally different than got me going in the first place, thankfully to date hardly any of these dishes made it straight to the bin and me straight to the nearest take-away, but the odd one (hmmmm), of course.

I have to admit I am generally inspired by one part of a dish, the roast chicken dish which is my avatar, was inspired by Michel Bras' bread jus from his book essential cuisine.

Alex.

[hjshorter]

I would like to think I am organized. We usually make a menu for the week, only to get halfway through and realize that we forgot to buy a crucial ingredient for something, or the fish has gone "off", or we just lose interest in whatever it was on the list and go out.

If I get around to cooking I always prep. We cook a great deal of asian food, with long ingredient lists that force you to set up a mise en place. And I can, which requires lots of advance chopping and jar prep.

[hjshorter]

maybe I ought to start reallly slowly .. you know, buy those little glass dishes ... 

←

I have a dozen of those. Necessary objects.

[mizducky]

maybe I ought to start reallly slowly .. you know, buy those little glass dishes ... 

←

Yeah, when I first started getting serious about my mise-en-place, back when I was first teaching myself how to do a proper stir-fry, having a flotilla of little bowls became key. Those itty bitty Pyrex bowls, the ones my mom used for instant pudding when I was a kid, are just perfect for most small items like yer garlic and other aromatics. For the larger-volume items, I wind up pressing into service all sorts of random bowls and containers, so that eventually my flotilla looks pretty motley--especially when I start creatively stacking some of the bowls because I'm running out of counter space.

[Chris Amirault]

Oh man, you're opening a can of worms, Melissa!

As the family cook, I definitely have my moments of tossing stuff together when it's gotta be on the table in twenty minutes. Having said that....

I am a mise en place fanatic most of the time. I don't just mean that I'm organized. Here, look at this photo:

Now, you might think that this is my little attempt at impressing eGulleteers, at pretending I'm down with Bourdain and his meez philosophy in Les Halles. Sure, I'd like you to believe that, but it's simply not so. Yes, this is what my kitchen island looks like most of the times I'm cooking. But don't be too complimentary: this may be a sickness, a sort of mise en place obsession.

Some evidence :

Note the absurd number of little bowls -- including the stack at the ready on the right. That's the tip of the iceberg: I have literally five or six times that number in my kitchen in aluminum alone. Andrea has to slap my hand at yard sales. "But, honey, that two cup bowl we have at home doesn't have a wide enough base," I whine. <WHACK>

Also, you can count three cutting boards just in this image. There are many more lurking in cabinets, depending on the different cutting tasks required. And we're not talking about keeping kosher, folks; this is nowhere near as rational a system as that.

Finally, perhaps you look at this and think, "Pretty organized!" Feh! I spit in your general direction. This, slacker, is a titanic mess.

I mean, the bowls aren't arranged by their use in the recipe! And why is that daikon sitting off to the right? Two pairs of chopsticks? How wasteful is that?!? Why hasn't that gochuchang been spooned into its own little dish? Huh?!?

This is bad -- but I'm worse, way, way worse, at other people's houses. I once wrenched a chef's knife out of someone's hands because he was doing such a terrible job "mincing" a clove of garlic; who wants to witness that crime against food? I cannot hide the horror on my face as the onions quickly darken to black and my so-called friend is yakking away while she pries open a can of tomatoes.

I truly believe that the embrace of mise en place is a morally superior gesture, and that rejection of mise en place is morally suspect.

I know. I should seek help. But are there others out there with my curse?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Oh man, you're opening a can of worms, Melissa!

I truly believe that the embrace of mise en place is a morally superior gesture, and that rejection of mise en place is morally suspect.

I know. I should seek help. But are there others out there with my curse?

←

I did try to become more organized but, even with therapy, the "curse" (well put, Chris!! ) was never even achievable on a sustained basis ... the smug, self-satisfied feeling I had immediately after my initial attempt at ultra-organized, rapidly disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind ... and I resorted to my primary cooking style: casual-dressy ... it just seemed so much more spontaneous! Like great sex should be ...

[Gifted Gourmet]

sorry .. duplicate post .. see? not organized ...

[winesonoma]

Much more "mess up place" kinda cook.

[Chris Amirault]

I did try to become more organized but, even with therapy, the "curse" (well put, Chris!! ) was never even achievable on a sustained basis ... the smug, self-satisfied feeling I had immediately after my initial attempt at ultra-organized, rapidly disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind ...  and I resorted to my primary cooking style: casual-dressy ... it just seemed so much more spontaneous! Like great sex should be ... 

←

Huh?

You mean great sex shouldn't involve hand-written instructions with step-by-step diagrams?

Come again...?

[Smithy]

maybe I ought to start reallly slowly .. you know, buy those little glass dishes ... 

←

Yeah, when I first started getting serious about my mise-en-place, back when I was first teaching myself how to do a proper stir-fry, having a flotilla of little bowls became key. Those itty bitty Pyrex bowls, the ones my mom used for instant pudding when I was a kid, are just perfect for most small items like yer garlic and other aromatics. For the larger-volume items, I wind up pressing into service all sorts of random bowls and containers, so that eventually my flotilla looks pretty motley--especially when I start creatively stacking some of the bowls because I'm running out of counter space.

←

That sounds a lot like me. The little glass bowls - bless my sister for starting me on these - work really well. I usually end up breaking out the soup bowls, mixing bowls, everything else as well. For a time I saved those little plastic cups that yogurt comes in. They were perfect, but as the population of plastic containers boomed in our household they had to go.

I see Chris has weighed in while I was writing. OK, I confess, needing an excuse at the yard sales and cool kitchen shops was the other reason I stopped saving yogurt cups. Why save plastic yogurt cups when you've always wanted an excuse for cute little ramekins?

[Gifted Gourmet]

both convenient and disposable ... for spices, s&p